Physical barriers are commonly used to seal openings in certain objects, such as panel members in motor vehicles, buildings, household appliances, etc. These barriers normally are used to prevent physical materials, fluids, and gases such as environmental contaminants, fumes, dirt, dust moisture, water, etc., from passing through the opening in the object. For example, an automotive panel member, such as a door panel, typically has several openings in the sheet metal, which are created for various reasons during manufacturing. Further, various structural components of automobile bodies have a variety of orifices, hollow posts, cavities, passages and openings (collectively, “openings”) that can allow contaminants into the passenger compartment. These openings are preferably sealed before the vehicle is delivered to the end customer.
Known physical barriers usually include a sealer material applied to a carrier device, which typically comprises a molded-plastic component. Heretofore, the sealer has been molded into a relatively rigid component, the shape of which being adapted to fit on or within predetermined areas, i.e., “placement areas”, on the carrier. Each sealer/carrier combination has been designed (in shape and size) to match a particular opening (having a similar shape and size) in a given panel member. The carrier is generally adapted to fill the majority of the opening, while the sealer is adapted to seal around the interface between the carrier and the perimeter of the opening. Many times, the sealer comprises a material that can be activated to expand and seal the interface between the carrier and the edges of the panel member that define the opening. Such sealers can be activated in a variety of ways, including by a temperature change (usually the application of heat) or by the introduction of a chemical agent. For example, one common method of activating heat-activated sealers used on automobiles is to allow the elevated temperatures applied to the vehicle during the coating and/or painting processes to activate the sealers and cause them to expand, thereby creating a complete seal around the openings.
A significant drawback to known barriers is that they are labor-intensive to manufacture. Known methods of manufacture involve specifically molding the sealer material into a rigid component whose shape matches that of its corresponding position on or within the carrier. Then, the molded sealer component has been manually installed onto or into the carrier. The manual installation of the molded sealer component is particularly difficult because the allowed workspace for workers to perform this function is typically very limited, and the task requires good fine motor control. In effect, the steps of molding the sealer material into a rigid shape and manually placing the molded sealer material into or onto a carrier are significant components in the overall cost and time required to manufacture physical barriers of this type.
Consequently, the inventors hereof have recognized a need for an improved system and method of manufacturing physical barriers.